Another early morning departure

5.45 am and my alarm clock went off, another early morning and another day in the air. At least I have a more gentle alarm tune nowadays
A quick shower, some final packing and I was ready to leave.
As I was staying close to the Sydney central station there was only a short walk to the airport train, very appreciated this early morning.
I caught the 6.38 am departure from the central station and arrived at the airport at 6.50 am with over two hours before departure, plenty of time for a long breakfast in the lounge.

The international departure hall was rather crowded, there were many flights leaving around 8-9 am.

Pics
Early morning at Sydney central station
Waiting for the train to the airport
The international departure hall
The departure board, busy morning at Sydney airport

Check-in at Sydney airport

The Asiana check-in area was located at the far end of the departure hall. A man was standing at the entrance and briefly went through the usual security and liquid regulations before letting me pass.

Two business class desks were open with no one in line for any of them.
The middle-aged female check-in agent operating the right one was most friendly and pleasant and greeted me with a cheery good morning. Apparently she had been at the airport since 5 am in the morning (I was not envious).

I placed my bag on the belt and gave her my booking confirmation. My next question to her was going to be the possibility of interlining my luggage since Seoul was not my final destination but the connecting flight was on another ticket.
However she must have been an excellent mind-reader, before I even got the chance to say anything she rather surprisingly asked me “so Mr jacob_m, do you perhaps want your luggage tagged to somewhere else?”.
That question was certainly not expected, but I fetched the second booking confirmation from my bag and mentioned I indeed had a connecting flight and a layover in Seoul. After some typing a baggage tag was printed and she specifically showed it to me to let me see all flights and dates were correct. Not a thing to comment about!
Really great! I had enough time for immigration and reclaim and recheck of luggage in Seoul, but this certainly made things easier. ^
My luggage was also tagged with an Asiana business class priority tag.

Asiana does not provide the opportunity to pre-book seats onboard, not even in business class, a second good reason for showing up quite early at the airport.
I always prefer window seats to be able to take photos (especially when travelling to other parts of the world) and because it is easier to sleep in a window seat. She gave me seat 02A for the flight which I was happy about.
Finally she also gave me an invitation to use the express lane at passport control and security as well as a departure card where she had nicely completed my name, date and flight number.

Overall a very nice and positive check-in experience.
As I left the check-in area I suddenly remembered I forgot to give her my SAS frequent flyer which I knew was not in the reservation. This was easily sorted out and they printed a new boarding pass for me where both the FF-number and the standard SK*G were clearly visible.

Pics
The Asiana check-in area
Signs for business class check-in
Very friendly staff at the Asiana business class check-in

A very appreciated fast track lane at security

There was a huge line for the passport control which stretch through half the departure hall, or so it felt.
I did not see any signs for the express lane so I asked one of the officers in charge of the line and she escorted me through the small corridor to a rather well-hidden express lane counter, which I would never have found on my own.
About two people were in line at the express counter in contrast to the 100+ in the regular line, very nice!
The whole immigration and security process was over in less than five minutes, much appreciated!

I had a look around the transit hall before heading for the lounge. I think the transit hall in Sydney is quite pleasant with a decent number of interesting shops.
I ended up being a small wine rack with a very nice typical Australian design.

Pics
My Asiana boarding pass and the express lane card
The rather nice transit hall with a good selection of shops
The transit hall, following the sign for airline lounges

Air New Zealand lounge, Sydney

Asiana uses the Air New Zealand lounge in Sydney, one of my favourite lounges in the world.
The lounge is located one floor above the main shopping area.
A friendly female lounge dragon greeted me at the reception welcomed me to the lounge. For Asiana passengers they had passenger manifest at the reception desk so she made a tick next to my name.

The Air NZ is really pleasant, it has a very nice and relaxed but still elegant design with comfortable seating and a great apron and runway view.
The selection of foods and drinks is also very good. This morning a decent selection of breakfast dishes were on offer including hot breakfast (sausages, scrambled eggs), yoghurt and bowls with fresh fruit.
But best of all, my favourite part of the breakfast buffet, there was a pancake machine!
I have actually never seen or used one before, I did not even know they existed.
You take a plate and place it to the right of the pancake machine, then you press a button, and after about three minutes it delivers two freshly made pancakes on the plate, and they tasted pretty good too!!

Drinks are pretty good in the lounge as well, however as it was still morning I stuck to orange juice and a few cups of coffee.
Later during the day there is a good selection of beer, wine and soft drinks. The selection of spirits is OK but they could have provided some better well-known brands instead of some cheap ones they had.

I made myself a rather decent breakfast and had a seat by the window to look at the action on the apron. A Singapore Airlines A380 had just arrived and was pushed back to a remote stand, shortly afterwards the Asiana B777 arrived that would take me to Seoul later on. The turnaround time must have been not more than 90 minutes of this aircraft.

The lounge also has a pretty good business centre as well as free wifi. I turned on my laptop to check my e-mails and made an initial try with the username and password they had in the NZ lounge in Auckland (which I, for some reason, still remembered), and actually it worked.

Pics
The entrance to the Air New Zealand lounge
The nice lobby (and an SQ B744 pushing back in the background)
Inside the fantastic lounge
Plenty of seating
Some seats are located by the window with a fantastic apron view
The self-service buffet area
Excellent selection of breakfast dishes
The cool pancake machine
Drinks selection
Red wine and spirits
Beer, white wine and sparkling wine
The business centre
A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 seen from the lounge
The Asiana B777 has just landed

Boarding

Gate 54 was used for the flight to Seoul, a small and completely inadequate gate for all the passengers waiting to board the Boeing 777 (which was not full but had a decent load).
Boarding started at 8.45 am, 25 minutes before departure, with priority boarding for people who needed assistance followed by business class passengers (not sure if they mentioned Star Gold).
As usual I was one of the first passengers to board, rather intentional as it makes it far easier to take photos of the seat and cabin.

Interestingly while waiting at the gate I also noticed the flight was code-shared with Qantas. That did not really add up since Asiana is in the Star Alliance while Qantas is part of One World. Also then it would have made more sense to let Asiana premium passengers use the Qantas lounge, which was not the case.

Pics
The Asiana Boeing 777 seen from the gate area
Waiting for boarding to start at the gate
A crowded and completely insufficient gate area

Welcome onboard

I was greeted at the door and directed to my seat, before I had hardly made it to my seat a second FA approached me and offered to take my jacket.
There was only one passenger bridge in use so all passengers boarded the aircraft through door 1L and had to pass through the business class cabin.
Pre-departure drinks were offered, standard selection of water, orange juice and champers. They served the rather tasty Charles Heidsieck onboard, nice!
The FAs were helpful and helped passengers with their hand luggage whenever needed.
Newspapers were available at the gate but a second run was made in the business class cabin before doors were closed.

Pics
An Asiana flight attendant welcoming business class passengers onboard…
…while another one is helping passengers store their hand luggage
Welcome to Asiana
A glass of champagne before departure

Sydney-Seoul/Incheon, flight OZ 602 operated by Asiana
Departure: 09:10
Arrival: 18:45
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200
Class: Business Class
Seat: 02A

Pushback was done at 9.15 am, pretty much at scheduled departure time.
Just like on Korean Air there was a little “ceremony” to welcome passengers onboard. After the doors were closed and the safety demo was about to start all FAs went to their designated positions facing the passengers, a bell then sounded and all members of the crew bowed simultaneously.
I don’t know if this is something commonly done in Korea, but no matter what it looks very elegant and feels very respectful and accommodating.
An animated safety demonstration video was shown on all screens and the purser also welcomed us all onboard, mentioning that the flight time to Seoul was expected to be 9 hours and 45 minutes.

Another interesting episode was spotted outside my window, in this case about a rather charming member of the ground crew who probably assisted with pushback of the aircraft.
After he confirmed to the captain with a hands up the aircraft was ready for taxi he stood at attention and bowed to the captain. Afterwards he started waiving to the passengers and continued doing so until the entire aircraft had passed.
How thoughtful! There is a photo of him below.

We finally took off at 9.30 am from runway 34L.

Pics
The ground staff man waiving at us
Safety demonstration video
Passing the international terminal, anyone knows what airline the aircraft to the left belongs to?
Taxiing to the runway with the Sydney skyline in the background
Lining up for departure

The menu

Two meals would be served during the flight, a brunch service just after take-off and a more extensive meal service (lunch) around 2½ hours before landing.

The business class menus were distributed, a rather nice-looking one with a nice drawing on the front.

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The business class menu

On offer on the flight to Seoul were the following:

First meal service - Brunch

Hot towels were offered to all passengers and then the tables were set for the meal with white tablecloths.
The brunch service consisted of a fruit appetizer followed by a main course and dessert.
The fruit appetizer was very good and the presentation was quite nice.
As main course I chose the pan fried dory with potatoes, pretty good although perhaps not spectacular.
I had a few glasses of the nice Charles Heidsieck to accompany the meal.
Finally as dessert they served a very yummy hazlenut cake as well as coffee and tea.
Overall a nice brunch service, just perfect after having had breakfast in the lounge two hours earlier.

Pics
A lovely smiling flight attendant offering hot towels in the business class cabin
Fruit appetizer
Flight attendants offering drinks in the cabin
Main course
Dessert and coffee

The seat

The Asiana business class seat is a rather standard lie-flat seat with a 50” seat pitch and 20” seat width.
It is quite similar to the Turkish Airlines seat (reviewed earlier in this report) and other airlines like SAS and Lufthansa.
I quite like the seat though, reasonably advanced with many options to find a good position, whether you want to sleep, rest, slepp, or sit upwards during a meal service.
Since this was a daytime flight I never tried to recline it to a bed, so I can’t comment on that part.
The seat also had in-seat power which I made use of for my laptop, worked just fine except that I needed to use an adapter, but that’s quite usual.

Business class on the Boeing 777 has five rows with a 2-3-2 configuration making that 35 business class seats in total.

Some amenities were available at the seat upon boarding on a small shelf just below the TV-screen, the amenitites included slippers, eyeshades and socks.

Pics
The business class cabin on the Boeing 777
The business class seat
The seat controls

The inflight entertainment system

Here is a major disappointment, there was no AVOD onboard. I know Asiana has installed AVOD on some planes, including some Boeing 777s, but this was not one of them.
The inflight entertainment system was rather deceiving since there was a fairly attractive menu with both a video and an audio option.
When selecting “video” the system took you to a second menu with some info about the movies on offer, however when you finally selected a movie the movie did not start from the beginning, instead you had to realise it was a VCR playing.

Other than about 10 movies there were a few interesting documentaries and news reports that I watched. Fortunately I also had my own laptop with me with several movies to watch, the in-seat power supply worked very well.
I watched the newest James Bond movie during the flight, Quantum of solace.

Pics
The inflight entertainment system
Selection of movies
The business class cabin darkened

Some nice views outside the window

This was a daytime flight departing at 9 am and arriving at 7 pm meaning it was daylight outside during the entire flight.
Despite being a daytime flight most window shades were lowered in the cabin during the flight, however I kept my window shade open (or partly open) to let my body adjust and to avoid getting problems sleeping later on.
As a consequence I enjoyed the great view outside the window during the flight.

Around 2-3 hours after departure from Sydney we passed the north-eastern coast of Australia with a magnificent view from my seat.
I am pretty sure what I saw was the famous Great Barrier Reef. If anyone knows something else, please feel free to enlighten me, some of the photos I took are available below.
But the area was just beautiful, absolutely spectacular!

After leaving Australia behind we crossed Papua New Guinea, unfortunately it was rather cloudy so I did not manage to see much of this to me rather unknown island.

A large part of the flight was rather bumpy due to turbulence so the seatbelt sign was turned on and off quite a few times during the flight.

Pics
The wonderful Australian coastline
This must be the Great Barrier Reef, looks wonderful!
Second photo of the Great Barrier Reef
And some more nice islands

Mid-flight snacks

Halfway to Seoul the flight attendants passed through the cabin with a trolley offering a mid-flight snack, a choice between a fruit plate and sandwiches.
I chose the very fresh fruit plate and also asked for a glass of red wine, which was both provided and refilled several times.

During the flight several drink rounds were made of water and orange juice, I am sure the flight attendants passed at least 6-8 times between the meals.

Pics
Nice fruit plate
Flight map showing we are crossing the Pacific Ocean on course for Japan

Second meal service - Lunch

Around two and a half hour before landing the second and main meal service was performed in the cabin.
Hot towels were again distributed followed by white tablecloths on the tables.
Nice canapés were offered from a large tray followed by drinks. Having tried one of the French red wines with the mid-flight snack I decided to try the Californian wine this time.

Next the tray with the appetizer was handed out, I chose the second option with chili chicken breast and crabmeat, which was delicious.
A bowl with fresh salad was also on the tray and several rounds with many types of bread in a basket were made by the crew.

There were three choices of main course. Beef tenderloin and roasted chicken breast as the western options and Bi-Bim-Bab as the Korean option.
I usually enjoy trying the local cuisine, but since the Bi-Bim-Bab was the dish I had on the Korean Air flight between Seoul and Nadi I went for the chicken instead. OK although nothing spectacular.
Very nicely the flight attendant distributing the main course had a large selection of sauces and spices on her trolley and added the tomato sauce to the chicken at my seat, very elegant!

A nice cheese and fruit plate was then offered. Crackers were offered from a basket and passengers could also take carrot and leek sticks from two glasses.

Finally the dessert cart passed with coffee, tea and liqueurs.
The dessert was a rather tasty chocolate mousse. I also had a cup of coffee and decided to try a glass of the port wine they had on offer, which ended up being two glasses.
The meal service was rounded off with petits fours.

Pics
Canapés and a glass of red wine
Two flight attendants serving pre-meal canapés from the cart
Appetizer
Main course
Nice cheese and fruit plate
Dessert, coffee and a glass of port

The inflight service

The service onboard was attentive, friendly, elegant and professional. In one word - a delight!

During the meal services the meal order was taken once and the drink order once. After that they knew exactly what each passenger was eating and drinking, there was not even the slightest uncertainty what red wine I was drinking and I never had to keep track of that myself.
Sometimes an FA would come out of the galley with one bottle of wine, go straight to my seat to refill my glass, and then return to the galley.
Somehow they also figured out exactly when my glass would be nearly empty, so none of my glasses of water/wine/champagne were ever empty during any of the meal services during the flight, except when I declined another top-up. Amazing! ^
When passing through the cabin with the trolley I know they had a small piece of paper with notes, but it was so well concealed between bottles and utensils that I don’t think I would have noticed it if I had not looked for such a paper.
The feeling was that they knew exactly what was going on and in spite of having probably 25 business class passengers to serve the service felt surprisingly attentive and personal.

The meal services (and in fact the whole flight) were extremely well coordinated with optimal time between drink rounds and the different courses during the meal services.
During the second meal service my seat neighbour had ordered a special meal and after the appetizer plates had been collected one of the FAs came to his seat and told him his special meal was delayed and would unfortunately take another 8 minutes (no more, no less). She apologised but still hoped that would be OK (he did not seem to mind at all).

Hot towels were also provided at least 5-6 times during the flight.

The flight attendants were just lovely. Friendly and courteous making you feel very comfortable during the flight. No request was ever too much trouble.

Arrival in Seoul

We started our descent somewhere over the Korean peninsula.
During the descent the purser passed through the cabin and personally thanked each passenger for flying Asiana and to check we were happy with the flight. ^
I told her it was my first ever flight with Asiana and that I was more than happy with the flight and service and would certainly not hesitate to fly Asiana again.
The purser seemed genuinely happy hearing me saying that.
Jackets were also returned during the descent to speed up disembarkation after landing.

Because of a wind from the south (meaning landing from north) we had to fly around the entire bay which made the flight slightly longer.
At 6.30 pm we finally touched down on runway 15L at Incheon airport, a grey and rainy Incheon airport.

Just like on previous flights a health declaration form was distributed to all passengers during the flight.
At the gate a team from possibly the health department greeted us and asked us to see our completed health forms before letting us pass.
One of the questions on the form was the countries visited during the past month. With all countries I had visited during the past days I was naturally selected for a secondary screening and just like in Apia they checked my body temperature, but (fortunately) there was nothing to comment about.

Pics
Nice view during the final approach…
…although unfortunately rather grey and rainy weather
Thank you for flying Asiana, see you again
A rainy terminal at Incheon airport with several Asiana aircrafts
The Boeing 777 seen from the terminal, it will depart for LAX in a few hours

Conclusion

The flight with Asiana was simply a delight.
The service onboard was just great. Very courteous, attentive and professional with lovely smiling flight attendants who really made me feel at ease.
Both food and drinks were also very good although some main courses were perhaps a bit basic for business class. The food was tasty and filling though with generally a nice presentation. The meal services were also extremely well coordinated.
The seat was the standard lie-flat version, which I personally think is quite comfortable. Only real drawback onboard was the lack of AVOD.
This was my first flight with Asiana, but I would certainly not hesitate to step onboard an Asiana flight again, just too bad they don’t really fly any of the routes I usually fly.